Becoming Capable

The gap between knowing what to do and being the person who actually does it is where most of us live.

My Observation

I've been sitting with something lately, and I'm not sure I have the full language for it yet.

There's a version of productivity advice that's essentially: adopt this system, install this habit, apply this framework. It's not wrong, but it treats you like a machine that just needs the right software update.

What I've been thinking about is something bigger than that.

Becoming the person capable of delivering the results you want isn't about collecting better tips. It's about taking stock of what actually matters to you, understanding what has to happen to get there, and building the environment and the rhythms that make those things possible.

It’s more than a system. It's a reckoning.

I don’t know that many (any?) of you want the gory details of what I’m building for myself, but I'll say this: my business and my health are both in different places than they were six months ago. Not because I found a better productivity hack. Because I got honest about what I was actually trying to build, and who I needed to become to build it.

Slower work. Fewer soundbites. Completely worth it.

This Week's Read

Every March, some version of panic sets in. Pipeline looks thin, Q1 is closing soft, and the instinct is immediate: go prospect. Make calls. Fill the funnel.

Before you do, this week's blog asks a question worth sitting with: Are you taking the hardest route first?

Read it →

Deeper Thought

Last week's prompt: think of someone who showed up for you when they didn't know you needed it. Did you ever tell them?

I've got a few people on that list:

• My wife (insert Borat voice if you’d like), consistently. Fortunately, we talk about this often.

• Jason Bay. He reached out to me in late 2024 because he needed a little help and a capable trainer to start scaling his business. I think he helped me more than I helped him. It reminded me, at a time when I needed it, that I’m damn good at what I do, and informed me that I needed to create better systems so I could do more of it.

• Maria Bross (from last week). During one of our text exchanges, she said some things that were absolutely screenshot-this-and-save-it-for-a-rainy-day worthy.

• Lindsay Rios (who you'll read more about in a moment). She’s a whiz at asking the right questions. She also provided consistent encouragement from someone who doesn’t know me well enough to be biased, but who I look up to a great deal.

There are so many more, and the longer I think about it, the more people would show up on this list. What hit me as I sat with this is how rarely we actually say it out loud. We think about these people. We feel the gratitude. And then we move on.

This week, I got to close a couple of those loops, and the feeling is absolutely worth it.

This week's prompt: What does it really mean to become the person capable of delivering the results you want?

Not just what you need to do differently... Who do you need to become?

Take a walk. Think about it. The comments are open.

I'll share mine next Sunday.

What I'm Into

I finished Nate Nasralla's book Brief and Brilliant this week. Wow.

Nate documents the connective tissue between sales activities and actual effectiveness, the in-between stuff most sellers miss entirely. He's distilled cooperative, clear communication in a way I haven't seen anyone else do. He's just playing a different game than everybody else, and I'm glad he's sharing it. It’s worth another listen.

I also started Blair Enns’ The Four Conversations this week. 5 pages in, and I felt seen. It’s going to be hard to put down, despite the fact that I’m more of an audiobook guy.

The Shoutout

If you haven't found Lindsay Rios on LinkedIn yet, that should change immediately.

She's got the kind of presence that makes you stop scrolling… the dance party Fridays, the 90s hip-hop references. But you stay because the substance backs it up. Tough truths about why your pipeline looks the way it does, and exactly what to do about it.

Lindsay took my call last year and told me pretty directly to stop holding back. To come out of my shell. She also gave me some tools to help, and it seems to be working.

Sometimes it takes someone who barely knows you but cares enough to be generous to get the best out of you, and I don’t know if there’s a more magnetic personality on the internet right now.

Thank you, Lindsay.

The Nudge

Know Why You Win is now available in audio. It's on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and pretty much everywhere else fine podcasts are sold…

If you've been meaning to get to it, this is the format you've been waiting for.

Get the ebook →

Cheers,
JB

P.S. If your pipeline feels thin right now, read the blog before you start making cold calls. You might be skipping five easier steps, and there’s more coming on that in the next several weeks.